Hematolagnia
by Mydnyte Houre
Summary: A series of very short scenes following the Joker and Harley's relationship, from his POV. Somewhat abstract, but I'm hoping the scenes will be fairly easy to follow. Will eventually have darker, more sexual themes. Look up the title on Wikipedia.
1. Chapter One

**Hematolagnia**

This will be a series of Joker/Harley scenes, tracing from their sessions in Arkham to later escapades. I've noticed that a lot of the fics out there are from Harley's POV, and since I wanted to try my hand at this universe/ship, I thought I'd take the plunge even further and write from the Joker's perspective.

Each chapter will be pretty short, with just a few scenes, although they'll probably get longer as the story progresses. I'm going to try to keep the progression of each scene easy to follow, but they're somewhat abstract.

In closing: this will eventually be rated M, although I'm keeping it T for now. Look up what the title means on Wikipedia. If you don't think you can handle this story, then let your search turn elsewhere.

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That's what she calls it. And it's not even in the dictionary. I tell her she can't make up words, can't come up with these false psychological disorders that don't mean a damn thing.

"I'm not making it up. And anyway, you should trust me when it comes to…"

She trails off, but I know what she's thinking. _Psychological disorders_. I always know what she's thinking. I can tell she's just trying spare me, trying to be sweet, that sickly sweet that makes me want to snap her thin little neck between my fingers.

-~-~-

She says it again, a few days later, and this time I can hear blood dripping off of each syllable. It rolls around my tongue like I wish her fingers would. I taste copper and salt, copper and heat, copper and cyanide. It tastes like her, _like I imagine you and your sweat and your __**tears**__, Harley_, and suddenly I want to spit it out.

-~-~-

She watches me with those dark eyes. Her apprehension is almost palpable, and I want to twist myself around it and breathe it in. She's just like her wrists—_God, I hate them_—all cream and sensuality, weak to the core. Thin as the paper she makes little notes on. _Are you writing love notes today? Are you pretending to take interest in 'how the patient responds to questions about his past'?_

I realize I've been watching her, too, and she's not leaning forward in her chair anymore. Harley watches me, beautiful, damned Harley, _why won't you let me call you Harley?_

I can't decide what I want to force into her mouth, my tongue or my knife. I grin, feel withered skin cracking along old scars, and I run my tongue across my lips. _Your eyes are back on me now, aren't they_?

"Don't fucking look at me like that."

They're the first words I've spoken to her today, and I know they'll be the last. She doesn't deserve the answers she wants so desperately, not when she's staring at me like that. _You'll beg before I tell you anything, and you'll let me call you Harley_.

-~-~-

She keeps bringing up that same word, the one that tastes like copper. This time she tells me what it means.

"Are you calling me a **vampire**?"

"I didn't say drinking."

_I just want to see you bleed_. I want to see a little red on that icy skin, see it trickle down her cheek and—

I'm speaking out loud, I realize, and her eyes are wide with fear. But there's something else there, a glimmer behind the veil. She wants to know what it would feel like. I taste copper again, I taste **her** again.

"Tell me you want me, Harley."

She's calm, as always. The only one who ever is. "That's not my name. Don't say inappropriate things like that, or I won't help you." But she's trying not to smile.

I can't hide my smile.

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_Mydnyte Houre Strikes Again._


	2. Chapter Two

**Hematolagnia**

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"Why won't you let me call you Harley?"

"You know, I had other things I wanted to ask you. This isn't a give-and-take conversation."

She's wearing red lipstick today. _You're starting to slip. _My eyes fasten onto her tongue as it unconsciously peeks out from behind her lips.

"Why do you want to be called the Joker?"

"Why don't you want to be called Harley?"

She won't answer my questions, just purses her lips and scratches something with her pen. The sound of metal bleeding ink onto paper screeches in my ears. She's reduced my life to a series of scribbles and psychiatric conjectures. Harley composes my existence on little white scraps with too-straight lines, her words getting longer so she can fool herself into thinking she's figured me out. She taps the pen against the side of her nose, watching me out of the corner of her eye, and I stare straight back. _You're back to playing games_. Sick games.

"Looking at the patient like he's your prey. Interesting tactic, Harley. Did they teach you that in medical school?"

"I would appreciate it if you would call me Dr. Quinzel."

"I would appreciate it if you'd let me fuck you and leave you crying on the floor. We all want things we can't have."

_Yet_.

-~-~-

I feel like I was born into this office. Feel like I was pulled, whining and covered in clammy bitterness, and then thrown onto a cold steel floor, staining it with the blood that clings to my naked body. Feel like she lifted me with that haze of disgust and curiosity in her eyes and slid me across her desk to probe the crevices of my wasted skin. Harley traces her fingernails across my pulse and presses down, groping at the back of my head.

I wake up and she's there, pen in her hand, patient on her mind, heart on her sleeve. _How pretty you'd look if it was true, if the blood trickled down your shoulder to the curve of your elbow and onto your damnably thin wrists._

"I want to know how you got those scars."

She's more forceful today, more straightforward. It's good to hear someone taking the initiative.

"Is that really what you want to know? I don't think a tenderhearted young girl like you can handle the bloodshed."

"I'm paid to handle it."

"Do you want to know how I got these scars, or do you want to know if that's what turned me into a hematolagniatic psychopath?"

She says something that I don't hear. The little unconscious moans she makes as she forms her vowels dissipate into the corners of the room. I close my eyes again and dream of Harley delivering me.

-~-~-

Days pass, and still her pen scratches. The nights become rivers of chrome interspersed with cold halogen, and only Harley fills the spaces in between.

"Why do you want to be called the Joker?"

"You tried that one already, sugar."

"You never gave me an answer."

Chrome and halogen. _Someday you'll understand, Harley._

"Life's a joke, little girl. If you knew what was really out there, in that world full of sick people you wish you could turn into saints and porcelain dolls… you wouldn't have to ask."

I taste copper for the first time in weeks. I look her dead in the eyes, and she stares back. Her lips twist with revulsion; mine twist with hers.

"Why aren't you writing all this down, Harley? Why aren't you writing me into existence? Why won't you deliver me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why aren't you writing down the jokes?"

"I don't—please stop screaming—"

"Copper, Harley! Goddammit, Harley, you taste like copper and chrome and halogen, you and your lips and your wrists!"

Screaming, then running, then needles. Then nothing.

-~-~-

"What did you mean last time?"

"You wouldn't understand."

_**Copper**__, __**chrome**__, __**halogen**__…_

"You can call me Harley if you want."

…_and __**cyanide**__._

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_Mydnyte Houre Strikes Again._


	3. Chapter Three

**Hematolagnia**

Before I launch into chapter three, I'd like to clarify something that princessebee brought to my attention (thanks, by the way!).

As I'm sure most of you have noticed, there's a sense of crossover between different Batman universes: the Joker is his Nolanverse personification, while Harley doesn't exist in that incarnation. I did this for a few reasons. I'm most comfortable with the Nolanverse Joker, and I think it's interesting to see the difference between how he twists Harley in his almost-silly way and in his darker way. The main reason, however, is that I was bound and determined to write this from his point of view, and I wanted to delve into the mind of someone like Ledger's Joker. This story, while it traces how he brings Harley to his level, is more about what goes on in his mind throughout the process than what goes on in hers. We see her downward spiral from an external viewpoint, as the Joker does, and instead (if my story goes well) we discover how he turns Harleen into Harley.

Anyway, thanks again to princessebee for reminding me to clarify a little. Sorry for the long note, and also the massive amount of time I took to update. I made the chapter longer than usual to make up for it.

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I decide to give her a present for letting me get into her head and twist her from the inside—like an imaginary little box with a ribbon of blood trickling through the cracks in the paper. Just imagining her when she rips off the gilt and shine and sees the poison underneath the crimson silk…

It puts a smile on my face.

"I did this to myself, Harley."

It almost puts a smile on her face, too. Her pen starts scratching frantic scars onto the notebook pressed into her laps, and her eyes widen and glint with curiosity. She traces her pale, creamy little finger—_stop teasing yourself_—along the crease at the edge of her mouth. I want to see copper fighting its way between the cracks in her skin, _and you want it, too, Harley._

"Why did you do it?"

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Why did the crazy clown stick a knife in his mouth and rip it open?"

Her hand is balled into a fist now. There is no disgust in her eyes, only fascination.

"Have you ever **tasted** it, Harley? Watched it drip through crevices and slice through flesh? It tastes beautiful. It tastes just like I imagine you would."

She's uncomfortable now. I imagine the lines on her face dissolving into stains of copper, little pools to show where things opened up that were meant to stay closed. She is on the edge of her seat, her knees pressed together. Her legs are white, but her little face is flushed.

"You're blushing, Harley. You've got blood on your face, and I can't taste it. It's under your skin and it's driving me **mad**."

She doesn't flinch like she used to, just leans closer. Her pen dangles between her fingers, forgotten. The image is somehow indecent, lewd. Her lips part slightly—she's having trouble breathing, and I love it. I lift my hand, shackles pressing crimson tattoos onto my wrist, and stretch my fingers towards her.

"Let me touch you, Harley." I want to dig my nails into that smooth ivory flesh. I want to rake diamond scratches onto her perfect skin and _watch you scream_.

She looks into my eyes, and suddenly something in her face snaps. She pulls back like a spooked animal.

Then she clears her throat. "Time's up for today."

-~-~-

They say she cannot see me. They tell me she's sick. My Harley doesn't get sick.

I scrape my hands down the walls in the dark, forcing concrete to rip scabs and calluses and expose the pink tenderness beneath. _That's what you want to do to me, isn't it? Expose the fragile underside that you're convinced I'm hiding?_ I scrape my fingers across the ground until red streaks crisscross over the rough floor. Little lines are running across the floor, marking the days.

I'm counting down the chrome.

-~-~-

"I'm sorry, I was sick for a few days."

I don't smile, but she can't tell.

"I thought we could get back to what we were talking about before I left."

"Were you really sick, Harley? Or do I just make you uncomfortable?" Anger surges through my veins like a lethal injection. "Can't you handle the chrome, sweetheart?"

"You said something like that before." She's wary of bringing it up, afraid that I'll scream again and they'll have to sedate me. I'd welcome it; I can't stand seeing her tap her pen against her bare legs. I want to rip it from her fingers and push it into that shadowed hollow at the base of her throat until it punctures skin and breath.

"What do you mean by chrome?" She's persistent, but I won't say a word. She can't unwrap me that easily. I want her to work for it, _want to see you sweat from the inside and slide and writhe beneath me until you scream for mercy_. "If you don't want to talk about that, why don't you tell me why you gave yourself those scars?"

"Telling you will just give me more."

"More what?"

"More scars, Harley."

She licks her lips, and my eyes are riveted, following every flick and curve of her soft pink tongue against lips that glow like a neon sign in a red light district. For a moment, I don't breathe; when she notices, she doesn't either. There is silence, and the room is filled with oxygen that no one wants.

"More scars?"

_Say something original._ "You want to pull me apart and see what's underneath, don't you? To expose me and find out what's really there? You just want to rip into flesh and discover all the hidden secrets that can be explained away by all the big words in your textbooks. I won't be a textbook for you, Harley, and you can't make me one."

"I'm not trying to."

"That, sugar, is what we refer to in the professional sense as bull shit."

"Just because I think I may have a diagnosis doesn't mean that you should start worrying about them. These fetishes are documented because other people have had them, and there's no need to feel embarrassed. I'm just trying to help you."

I laugh, and she sits up sharply in her chair. The sound shatters something intangible in the air between us. _When did you take your last breath, Harley?_ "Are you trying to make me feel better by telling me that other men have…?"

"**Hematolagnia**. And there are several cases of women with the condition."

"It's a condition now, is it? I look forward to the cure."

"Please don't do this."

Please? _I'd love to hear you say that again, Harley._ She uses her tongue too much when she shapes her letters. I'm staring at her, wide-eyed, and she bites her nails.

"How about masochism? Did you ever look into that theory, sweetheart?"

"You're not a masochist. I'm positive."

"I didn't mean me."

She struggles to remain pale, but the blood is fighting under her cheeks to blossom and infect her skin. "Joker. This is inappropriate."

"Did you just call me Joker?"

-~-~-

My name sounds like poison on her tongue, dripping with acid and cutting the air. Somehow, I don't want her to scream. When I make her hike up her skirt like a nervous schoolgirl against the wall of her office and her breath is ragged in my ear, I want her to whisper my name. I want her to keep it almost silent, tucked into the air between us as the halogen bulb suspended from the ceiling swings above us. Her begging will be for the world, but my name will be for me.

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_Mydnyte Houre Strikes Again._


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